The Long Green Shore by John Hepworth

Author:John Hepworth [Hepworth, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CLASSIC FICTION
ISBN: 9781922148810
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2014-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

5

But we must be inconstant to the earth—there’s the pity and the terror of it. We must rise—and never more reluctant from a lover’s bed. A red cross is drawn on a map and we must go there. The sky is grey and the jungle crouches, bland and waiting. The wet drips incessantly, implacably, imperturbably from the leaf—charting the passage of eternity.

Pez and Janos crouch against the bole of a tree and talk it over. They crouch on their haunches, crouch on their toes—ready. They do not look at each other—they watch the jungle. They whisper from the corners of their mouths. The rifle and the Owen are held loosely in their hands—ready.

‘They might open with mortars,’ insists Pez. ‘It’d be a hell of a thing to walk into your own mortars.’

‘They won’t,’ says Janos. ‘They’d wait for us to call for them—and we’ve got no line back across the river. They know we’re here somewhere. They wouldn’t use mortars unless we called for them. We’ve got to get that gun.’

‘They might just open up.’

‘The longer we wait the less chance we’ve got!’

‘Where do you reckon the gun is?’

‘About three or four hundred yards down—can’t be far from the bank.’

‘They might be strong.’

‘Probably just a gun crew.’

‘They’ll know we’re here.’

‘We know they’re there.’

‘Wait a while—we might get mortar support.’

‘If it doesn’t come in thirty seconds, it won’t come till we call,’ says Janos.

He turns his wrist and glances briefly at the second hand of his watch. He keeps his wrist turned and his gaze goes back steadily to the jungle. Thirty seconds. The leaf drips fifteen grains of eternity.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Bring them forward, not too close. When I give the hand, get them down and let them keep down—less movement the better. They’ll probably have a cover man out—you watch him—I’ll try for the gun.’

Janos glides away. Pez follows—his hand conjures the patrol from the earth—they materialise, drifting through the grey-green of the undergrowth. Harry Drew leads again, Regan is close behind him.

Here is a ballet and a symphony—here is a dance whose name is Death—whose overture is silence—waiting on the cue for savage strings, the bowel-plucking whine of the bullets. All the earth and yesterday and tomorrow are blotted out in this fierce, relaxed concentration that narrows a burning spotlight on this rain-soaked stretch of mud and jungle. The earth is suspect, save where we stand—the trees are treacherous—the leaves slant like eyes.

Janos drifts…the Owen in his hands loses the stock of metal and plastic and becomes an instinct of life, shifting and probing like mantis antennae…

Pez’s hand beats imperatively towards the earth and the furtive life behind him returns to the earth.

Janos drifts on. Pez follows—his dominant hand keeps the earth still and unbreathing behind him…

Janos was right. They had a cover man out. Pez killed him as he fired at Janos, and Janos sprang towards the pit where the two Nips were trying to swing the gun around against him.

He killed them both in the pit. One fell forward over the gun.

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